Eulogy
by Royaute
Summary: On New Year's Eve, 1990, Pokey Louis Minch fell off the edge of the world.
1. King of Nothing

October 1st, 1991.

Pokey Minch dreamed of Fourside, of mirrors and shadows flitting across their panes. Movements in the corner of his eye when he knew he was alone. Classic Daily Square was there without the lights, cameras, action. A dim, faultless Daily Square. Pokey could imagine the time ball dropping, a 1992 lighting up as it slowly descended. A cheering crowd, chatty television anchors...

Instead a shambled behemoth stood in the center, obscuring the ideal scene. Dropping off from the modern architecture, into a sordid monstrosity with disjointed boards sticking at odd angles.

There was a darker edge to this place: the idea of Sky vanished into a limitless red vortex. There was no source of light, yet everything was sharp and distinct; placed under the gaze of a fluorescent light.

Every crooked street led away from the other, each jointed together and carried on infinitely high, fading into red. At the sights of this bleak dream world, Pokey Minch straightened at the edges of his necktie. A finicky tic emerging.

He caught side of the Monotoli building, with ungainly windows and cock-eyed shutters. There was nowhere else to go; the center intersection was a gaping hole, sucking anything in nearer into an abyss.

Breath sucked away from Pokey's lungs, He traversed from the end of the His street and towards the monolith in eager steps. Only freezing when he saw the paper-roll banner stretched above the ever-enlarging doors. He read it silently, resisting the shudder down his back.

It proclaimed: CARNIVAL. A voice spoke, "The one truth eating what's still left from this rotten world."

A woman's voice strained out. He did not look for the source. Every dream he's had of this place, She always came around.

Focusing on the windows he could see unfamiliar faces inside; some mauled by rage and others bawling. Another appeared to be a strange shape that he could not define. On first instinct looked like a woman. It coiled into a Spiral shape that he recognized.

In a matter of seconds, it was a silhouette to Pokey's left. The color Purple began to bloom, spreading out in tendrils like dye dropped into a bucket of water, swirling into a face and features fixed on Him.

Even at the corners of his eyes, Pokey could see her now. Beside him, the Woman sucked in an uneasy breath and let it out with a shiver. Her limbs shook and body tighter than a tension wire.

The Woman stood near him, swaying. A faraway grin plastered to her face, streaks of blood standing out in sharp contrast to her pale and ghostly skin. She turned the spotlight of that smile to him.

"Amazing, amazing. You again!" He said, clapping. She ducked her head. Pokey doubted She could speak. She was only part of his dreams; a fleeting illusion meant to wear him to shreds.

"Hello," she was smiling gently, but it was false. A recording with static punctuating her voice. She was lifeless.

Pokey Minch didn't notice, taking a step forward, lips curled into a wry smile. He said, "I wasn't sure that you would come back here today, yet I can keep coming back here all I want and I _still_ can't figure out who _you're_ supposed to be! You look nothing like my mom."

"Neither was I, is that so?" She said evenly.

"Mhm." Sluggishly, Pokey's hand pivoted upwards and craned towards her. The fingers grew nearer and nearer Her figure. She grasped his fingers and curled around them, pulling them to her side. Pokey's fingers were shoved together with faint, cylindrical impressions in them, yanked to the side of their own accord.  
She peeled open his fingers, Pokey watching with curiosity as the same happened beyond it, and laid her own on top so they stood out in deep contrast. Her skin a milky white, his a slimy blue.

Pokey sighed dramatically, retracting his hand and wiping away at His tattered suit. "_You're_ not really here! I know how this works: _you're_ going to ask _me_ questions. Am I Right? Well _too bad_, I already answered them my_self_."

She snorted at this, an unladylike sound. It was enough to make his stomach drop. ""You don't know anything," the Woman replied through clenched teeth, running a hand through her frizzed hair.

"You're naïve and childish; I don't know how you made it so far in your world." She said, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"Yeah? And you are so much better?" He said back.

"I did not come here to join you any further in battles of words; I came to say good-bye."

That weightless sensation filled his gut again. Pokey pointed his finger towards the banner. It had quite a welcome to it. "You can go if you like, I think I'll go in here."

The woman laughed through her grating breaths. Pokey stepped through the doors, the Woman continued that guttural laugh "Whateveerr, I ain't wasting my time with you anymore."

She echoed, "Time is immaterial."

The floor was unconventionally smooth inside the Monotoli building. Glancing behind, Pokey wasn't surprised to see the door now gone and replaced with a black mirror. It stood straight even when craters littered the shimmering surface.

Fingers trembling, he extended them towards the mirror. Who knows where it began or ended? After seeming to go too far, he touched the slippery surface, yet from his view his hand might as well have been swaying in the air. There he saw it; flickering shapes, grey shadows, dancing silhouettes approaching. He ran, not knowing what he fled from. Through each crooked hallway seamless into another, twisting his image.

The mirror followed. Walls, floors, ceilings; all crystallized into a continuous mirror. He could see thousands of himself. Battered boys with great, black mouths opening and shutting like fish out of water. A voice spoke, "What's wrong? Can you still hear those voices? You already know what they want to tell you."

His fluid image rippled across and with him something unseen; shadows where none should be. Even in his dream state the boy realized they were what he ran from, and he found they were much worse. Black and shapeless, but just silhouettes. He could not see them, not if he looked for them.

He felt it in this soundless vacuum, the rhythm of his shoes slapping against the mirrored floor that faded into nothing. It was a maze. Corridors lead off and twisted into others as he ran, chased into turns that lead to dead ends. At times, he could swear he felt something.

A creep across the skin of his neck like icy water running sideways off him. He ran faster, horror overtaking him. Sounds of his ragged breathing pierced through the darkness.

When he saw an opening he knew without a doubt it was the last. He threw himself into it, It sealed behind him, leaving him in a circular room. All walls were flat and perfect, mirrors reflecting perfect realities on all sides. He came to the center, watching as thousands of him slipped through the mirrors, wound in through the cracks and sealed in with only one exit. He looked at that empty space. The exit from the maze, wherever it did lead.

Into another maze? Into outer space? Into the bottom of the ocean; sinking with concrete solidified over his feet?

But as the unseen shadows began to fill in the room with darkness, it dawned on Pokey Minch that even death was preferable to this. That no torture imagined could equal the reflection of bloodied boys all around him with his face, hands, eyes.

He had to go now. If he did not go now, he never would. Shutting his eyes from shadow and mirror alike, Pokey dove towards the emptiness. He fell through the floor, the layers of reality peeling back and opening before him, swallowing him into a shining redness.

Red. His sight was red. A bright, passionate Red. Ravenous red. The color of wrath, of danger. Bloody. A voice spoke to Pokey Minch. Telling him things, asking him for things. To let this new power, of what humans were truly capable of, to color him of black and red.

He felt nothing, but had known something was there. Something gigantic in weight of what it offered to him: The World. The idiots who fought against him will be praising his name.

This is a dream world, and in dreams there will be no pain, death, thought. Only blurred sight and sound. In dreams, you cannot die. A voice spoke, "You can feel me in your heart— your wishes are still not fulfilled. I know what you're feeling now, when others are watching you. So go, now, your World is waiting. Destroy the one you once knew. Release him from his invisible prison."

Pokey awoke.


	2. A Worldly Fool

October 1st, 1991.

Pokey Minch awoke. He did not want to awake; His father was there with him in the golden-decor limousine cruising to Fourside. Aloysius 'Louis' Minch rambled angrily with a voice that suggested the alcoholic glass in his hand was not his first. He didn't seem aware whether Pokey was sleep or awake.

Pokey leaned on his arms, focusing his eyes on the red ashtray sitting on a miniature table. He hummed under his breath, emptying it outside a rolled-down window. A few more blocks now and they were on the bridge.

Pokey stuck his head outside the window, smelling and puffing his lungs, letting the morning work throb its way into his head. He opened his eyes to look out at the running cars, at the walkers along the sides. Looked to the railing. Pokey felt no fear, nothing. Only that he wanted to escape this pig's sty. He tossed the red ashtray out towards a woman with a funny-looking hat, laughing erratically. "Nice hat, bitch!"

Officially, Pokey Minch's day began two minutes after noon. Pokey Minch was a boy who grew up in a town called Onett. Except, that was all there was to it. There were no call to adventures, no hidden powers inside him. Just little girls crying at recess and an egging voice that whispered in his ears._ Nobody can stop me anymore!_

_The hell are you cryin' for, Tracy? What's wrong?_

_What's wrong with you, Pokey? Why would you do that?!_

_Do what? What's she cryin' for?_

Only to repeat,_ What's wrong with you?!_

What's wrong with Pokey Minch. Now that's a question. He pulled his head back inside the limousine. A speeding tanker truck avoided taking off his head. Things that this his waking mind commonly failed to pick up on. In a fit of adrenaline, Pokey imagined the limousine hurling off the Silver Gate Bridge. He expected that to be the end, his train of thought always cutting off right before they hit water. He let out a hearty laughter with a lopsided grin.

A hint of ridicule crept over him when he glanced at his angry father, but Pokey Minch shut him out and slung his legs cross-legged over the table.

What point was there to go to work today? He could think of no reason to see Monotoli this morning. His eyes drawn to Aloysius' reflection in the glossed surface of the miniature table.

His father spoke, "Yeah, so, how did the appointment with Dr. Loomis go?"

"What?"

"_Shrink_, _you_, _appointment_, this morning? Nine _sharp_. How'd it _go?_"

"Oh," Pokey looked down and fidgeted with his necktie. "I forgot about it."

"_What?!_" Aloysius stopped, moving in front of his son. Pokey stiffened, seeing something in the violence in his voice that made him want to— "Say that to my face. I think I missed it."

"_I forgot_," Pokey said back, jaw clenching. Irrationally, he had the urge to grab the ashtray and smash it against his father's face. Slackening, he felt the laughter inside: look at you now, what you're close to being. His eyes glazed.

"You _forgot?!_ You can't _forget!_ You run away, join a cult one day, and almost _killed_ a girl, goddamn it. I—_I_ kept you out of the _loony _bin. _Any_one _else_—they'd have you_ locked up_, hell, put out on the street or—shit, your mom told me we should have you confined for a few years! Instead, you promise me that you'd get better and hold up with your appointments and keep it under control. You're a _man_ now. Some simple _pride_ and _responsibility_ is all I asked of you."

Pokey's knuckles whitened, "I forgot, _Dad_, nothing more than that."

Aloysius loosened, the fury dropping off his limbs as he slumped. He looked down to his hand. The shot glass had been crushed in his grip, his hand and sleeve covered in lukewarm cuts. Swearing, he dropped it and shook off his hand.

_Fuuuck yoouu_.

Aloysius wasn't looking at him anymore. "I know what you're thinking. Hate away, son, hate away."

Even when they arrived His words echoed in Pokey's mind. He couldn't stop feeling like he wanted to kill Aloysius Minch. With a frightening sense of calm, he knew he could've. It would've been too easy. He knew there was a power in him that could extinguish a life without effort.

When they finally arrived, He thought about this side by side with Aloysius in the elevator. Gray music formed the only sound between them. Aloysius' hand still dripped blood.

As they neared the twenty-seventh floor, He said, "I'd like you to sit in with me on an interview today. In fact, I'll give you the reins."

Pokey merely nodded. He understood it was supposed to be kindness. He felt no gratitude. He just wanted out of this pig's sty. "Miss Victoria Violet. She's from across the world. She's got quite a track record. In fact, I'm worried too much about her. She jumps from firm to firm, all bigger than ours. I want you to find out why she's coming. If it's something we can use then we take her. I'll leave that up to you."

Again, Pokey nodded. Aloysius' jaw clenched. "I'm glad I have you with me on this, son. I'm only asking you this because I know you're good at reading people."

_'Clinical insanity' bars me from that position. But it's so much more than that, Dad, something you could never understand._

Instead, he nodded a last time. The doors opened. In Monotoli's office Pokey seated himself at Geldegarde's desk, feeling the old mahogany stretch. The way things should be. The Mayor wasn't in today, so they filled in.

Pokey flexed his fingers across the wood. When Aloysius was not looking, Pokey tapped out a few imaginary keys on the desk then stopped. When Aloysius Minch did turn around, he felt something close to satisfaction with his son where he seemed to belong.

This was not the Pokey of old, nor would he ever be. Seeing this, Aloysius turned back to his folder, ignored the weight that settled over his chest at the thought. After a moment, Pokey said to the secretary, "Let her in."

Miss Violet was tall. She dressed elegantly, clearly evident they had been expertly tailored. She was something beautiful in an unnerving way. Her skin was unnaturally pale, her hair was a straight, platinum blonde. Not to mention it looked natural. Strangest of all were her eyes. Maybe it was just the lighting, but Pokey could swear her irides were golden discs; no pupils.

Something icy chilled the room when she sat down. Stiff backed, legs crossed, and folded her hands a little too eloquently on her lap. Pokey leaned across the desk and extended his hand, "Pokey Minch."

The sensation was growing until he felt a voice cut clear through his mind, _She is not to be trusted._

Pokey snapped his mind back to the woman sitting across from him. Her hand was as cold as her gaze with a voice to match, "Victoria Violet "

When Pokey pulled his hand away, he had the odd sensation of just having gripped a talon. He resisted the urge to shiver. Pokey swallowed back any lingering fury, his hands steadied when he laid them on the desk. He tried to focus on doing this right. Aloysius watched from leaning at the bookcase. Pokey began, "This, uh, is quite an impressive resume."

"Thank you," Victoria answered, but her words had the quality of a spit-out root with no actual gratitude behind them.

"I mean, _very_ impressive. Greenleaf law, and now here... You get the point," he lowered the folder, trying not to look at those eyes. Something about them caused a fury to build up inside, leaving him again with that sensation of being on the verge of snapping.

"I know," she said.

"Yes, uh, of course you do," Pokey continued, shifting some papers on his desk merely to look like he was doing something. Sighing, he looked up and said, "I'll get to the point. _Four_ firms in _three_ years? That's _fairly_ ridiculous and let's face it: it _doesn't_ look good. Jumping around the top firms of the country?! I get the sense that you're just here to screw me like you did them, sapping _my_ money and time—!"

"Time is immaterial," she stated out of the blue. Her tone reminded Pokey of something inhuman. Over her head, Aloysius raised his hands and mimed: What the hell?

Pokey leaned back, a disquiet sensation rising in his gut. Something about those words had triggered an almost déjà vu in him. He caught himself blinking several times, half-dazed he continued, "This has nothing to do with me, miss Violet. Had it been up to my associates solely, rejecting would not have even been in question. Your three years have more than guaranteed your worth for Them, but—well, _I_ have a different opinion."

He looked to see Miss Violet nodding. "I'll give you the time to finish up what you came here for, Miss Violet."

"I already have what I came here for," she said. It didn't matter how many times Pokey looked, she had that disconnected curiosity in her eyes. She blinked several times, as if she had just remembered people were supposed to blink and was attempting to make up for forgetting. Aloysius began ushering Pokey to end the interview with the universal gesture of the finger across the throat.

"Well, Miss Violet, we'll get back to you. That's enough for today."

Victoria nodded, jaw clenched. She stood the second he began to speak, picking up her briefcase with a graceful arch down. Her wry grin puzzled Pokey. "Take as long as you like."

Aloysius' face transformed into straight-out bewilderment. Pokey said, "Yeah, sure—"

"See you then." Victoria Violet strode out, closing the door herself with a confident click. As she left, Aloysius approached. Something in the way he walked, the way he put the folder down on the desk, told Pokey that it was not going to go well from there.


End file.
